Bailout!

In elementary school, the thing that we learned about Australia was that it was established as a huge prison for the British "thieves and debtors." To my little kid mind that sounded just fine, and perhaps I regurgitated that on some sort of quiz. As I grew up a bit, I vaguely reflected on that concept, and was a bit confused with it.
"Debtors"? What the heck are those? I mean, they obviously owe money, but everybody owes money. In my world, everybody had credit cards, morgages, car loans, student loans. My cousin Teddy had three houses and put four of his brothers and sisters through college and liked to brag that he was 4 million in debt. So what did the "-ors" mean after "debt"? (And if they owe you money, why would you want to send them away to an island, shouldn't you keep them around and try to squeeze some money out of them?)

Then I met Tom, and I learned a few things. With flashing blue eyes and his grey hair neatly trimmed, he would lean over the table and smile at you, and make you feel like a million bucks. His button-ups were always clean and tucked in, and he seemed to have answers to any question, an idea for any slow moment. He invited me on a kayaking trip, to run a river in eastern Bolivia that had never been run, and I said sure, I had a few weeks to burn. And before we even left the house, he asked me to loan him a hundred bucks. I went with it, and we drove for three days, way down into Amazonia, and at some point I started to stratch my head. He knew people in every town and we always ate for free. He would pull the owner aside, and then we just wouldn't pay. Sometimes we'd stay free at hotels. When I'd ask, he'd just smile. At first the smile inspired trust and admiration, but soon the candy melted. I wondered what the catch was.

We got deep in the forest, had terrifyingly close encounters with snakes and bees and a puma, and as we looked toward the river trip, I asked about my money. "There's no money here!" he cried indignantly. "How much more money do you have? What? How are we supposed to go on this trip with only that much?"

What the fuck, I thought. We had agreed to this trip, saying that we'd split everything down the middle, but this guy had NO money. He intended to schmooze, borrow, and skate the whole way. And at the end of the tunnel, there was no money. I put my foot down, and effectively stymied the river trip plans, and eventually Tom borrowed money from his estranged wife to pay me back.

This week our government plans to bail out Wall Street with a Trillion dollars from our Treasury. The super-wealthy made years of big loans and bad deals, and like Tom, at the end of the tunnel, there was no money. No substance. I'm not a finance expert, unfortunately, so I'm not sure if saving these companies is somehow "necessary" for avoiding undue pain and hardship for the global populace. If it's not necessary, then let those debtors fall, or send them to Australia!